Robert Mercer, the billionaire hedge fund manager from New York, was even busier financing shadow campaigns last year than previously known.

Last October, weeks after the ads started, we learned that Mercer had ponied up what ultimately turned out to be $627,500 for a series of ads attacking Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., and praising his opponent, Republican Art Robinson.

Now, Politico reports that Mercer also appeared to have paid $1 million to finance ads attacking the placement of an Islamic Center and mosque in lower Manhattan near the site of the 9/11 attacks.

As much as anything, according to the Politico story, the Mercer-funded advertising appeared aimed at helping Republican Rick Lazio in his ultimately losing gubernatorial race against Democrat Andrew Cuomo.

So is there a nexus between the two Mercer-financed ad campaigns? Maybe. DeFazio could have attracted Mercer's ire by supporting a tax on certain kinds of security transactions made by sophisticated investors. And Cuomo, then the attorney general, had been aggressive in policing Wall Street financial practices.

Politico notes that the New York ad buy could have been a signal to Cuomo that Wall Street was willing to pony up big money attacking him over state regulation of financial trading.